


Nothing more than a mask

by internetfeet



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 07:11:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5407679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/internetfeet/pseuds/internetfeet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Its over. Marinette loses her miraculous, her kwami, and her secret identity, and all on prom night. What is she supposed to do when the entire town is overrun with akuma and her and Adrien can't do anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing more than a mask

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to see more angsty action packed reveals and related aftermaths. As much as I love fluff I think Marinette and Adrien would probably have a lot more to worry about than their feelings for eachother if they had their identities revealed.

It’s over. 

That’s all that was running through Marinettes head as she stood panting in the front of her classmates. 

“Marinette?” She turned her head up towards the cautious soft voice. It was Alya. Her hair that had been up in elegant curls earlier in the evening was now a crazed frizzy mess, her dress askew and covered in dirt and blood, and her brows were knitted together in concern. For the first time in weeks Alya wasn’t looking at Marinette like she was some kind of traitor.

Alya knew now. She knew why her best friend was always late to class, why she never answered her phone, why she would run off and disappear without reason, why she was lying all this time. There were no more secrets, everything was out in the open. In normal circumstances she would’ve been relieved, but this is not how she wanted her to find out.

Everyone in class knew now. They had all seen her. They had all seen them. They had watched as hawkmoth had ripped the miraculous from them. They had seen them fight helplessly against innumerable akuma as their kwami were taken from them.

They had survived near death by sheer luck as Marinettes torn dress had been used as parachute while they were pushed out of hawkmoths ridiculous blimp hundreds of feet off the ground.

But it looks like all their luck had finally run dry. Chat Noir and Ladybug were no more. Instead in their place stood Marinette and Adrien. Two teenagers beaten up, bruised, bleeding, and boarded up in their english classroom. 

There had to be more than a thousand akuma outside of that classroom terrorizing the people of paris. They had been attacking non-stop since hawkmoths interruption at prom. Marinette looked at all of her friends. Their suits and dresses were torn and dirtied, their faces stricken with a fear. The room was dead silent except for the banging of insistent akuma outside the classroom door.

“What happened?” Alya asked, timid and seeming unsure of herself

“Hawkmoth won.” Adrien answered from his spot on the ground behind Marinette.

There was a pause of hesitation 

“Don’t say that...you...you guys can still go out there and… you can use your powers and-”

“NO WE CAN’T!” Alya jumped back as Adrien stood and roared “HE TOOK OUR MIRACULOUS! HE TOOK OUR KWAMI! WITHOUT EITHER OF THOSE WE ARE NOTHING!” 

His chest was heaving and a furious crazed expression lay on his face. He seemed to come to his senses and widened his eyes in panic. He fumbled backwards and slumped against the classboard. He pulled his hand up to his face and stared at nothing his eyes filled with despair.

Nino cautiously held his hand out to Adrien, unsure of how to soothe his friend.

“Dude….” 

“He’s right.” Marinette muttered. She looked down, her eyes welling up with tears she had yet to shed. Hawkmoth had taken their power. He had won. He had their miraculous. He had Tikki. Marinette began choking up, remembering the look of terror and pain she had saw in her dear kwamis eyes as she was yanked from the air by an aggressive akuma. She could do nothing but desperately try to push past the various akuma that had not stopped coming.

The entire classroom remained silent as Marinette began to shake with sobs. They all looked so sullen, as if their last hope had been crushed. But what could she do? She was no longer Ladybug, the confident superheroine that could get out of any situation that got in her way. She was Marinette, the girl who ran late to class, who tripped over her own two feet, who could barely talk to the boy she likes, who couldn’t even keep it together enough to fake a smile for her friends when all hope was lost.

“I don’t know what we’re gonna do…” She hiccuped between her sobs and failed to keep herself from finally falling apart.

Marinette heard the distant sound of stomping heels through her own crys. When the stomping stopped she lifted her eyes up to the furious face of Chloe.

“Now you listen to me!” She jabbed her broken nail into her face, sneering “I am NOT missing out on MY prom just because YOU don’t have some dumb accessories and pets! You’re going to save me and everyone in this room and all of paris, RIGHT THIS INSTANT!” 

Marinette gawked at her

“but-” “NO BUTS! You have saved me countless times, you have saved the people of paris countless times, and you have saved everyone of these freaks in this room countless times.” 

Chloe backed up so she was glaring at both Adrien and Marinette now. They both stood frozen in shock, unsure of what to do or say. The entire class was staring at the whole debacle, their expressions nearly identical to Adrien and Marinettes. 

“I don’t care if you’re wearing a mask, if you’re wearing your prom clothes, or if you do it in your FREAKING underwear, YOU ARE LADYBUG AND CHAT NOIR!” She gestured wildly to them.

“No matter what clothes you are wearing at the time, you are the ones who have been saving us all this time! Why would you stop now?!” She crossed her arms and stomped the ground like a child throwing a tantrum.

There was a beat of silence. And then suddenly the light at the end of the tunnel seemed to appear again.

“She’s right!” 

“We should’ve figured it was you this whole time!”

“Yeah! You guys are always calm whenever akuma attacks happen!”

Marinette and Adrien stood gaping at the classroom as each and every one of their classmate piped up one after the other.

Chloe stood there smirking, clearly happy that everyone was agreeing with her for once. She walked back over to her desk where her bag was and pulled something out, turning and walking back to Marinette and placing the item in her palm. 

Marinette still shocked, looked down at her hand and found something she didn’t think she would be seeing again. 

Her ladybug yoyo, the working one that chloe had used when she was pretending to be Ladybug. She closed her fingers loosely around it and looked back up at Chloe. 

“You expect us to just go out and fight a thousand akuma?” There was no longer despair in her voice as she spoke, only a question. Even as ladybug that amount of akuma seemed nearly impossible, she found it hard to believe that Chloe had that much faith in normal Marinette and Adrien.

“I expect you to go out and fight that birdmoth guy.” She placed her hand on her hip, “If you defeat him, all these akuma will go away right?” 

Marinette nodded slowly, unsure of if Chloe understood the predicament at hand. It’s not like they could somehow just sneak past all those akuma.

“How do you expect us to fight him if we can’t even get to him?” Marinette jumped, having not realized Adrien was now standing right next to her now. Unlike everyone elses sudden positive attitude at Chloes tantrum, he still had uncertainty and despair etched into his features. 

This time Adrien and Marinette both jumped as Alya and Nino slapped their hands on their shoulders.

“Just leave that to us!” Alya cheerily said.

“You dudes are saving our butts all the time, I think it’s time we return the favor!” Nino added with his own grin.

Marinette looked around the room at everyone's sudden determination. It was as if with one single speech, Chloe had turned the entire room from gloom to inspiration. Everyone in the room seemed to be nodding in agreement with Alya and Ninos statements. They were going to fight the akuma for them, so that they could make it to hawkmoth and stop him. Marinette gripped the yoyo in her hand tighter and straightened. 

Everyone looked at Marinette with baited breath

“okay!” The room burst into cheers.

She grinned at everyones smiling faces in the room. Something felt off though, and she looked looked over at Adrien. He still looked apprehensive. She needed to do something. The confidence that had been lost when their slow dance had been interrupted by hawkmoth reappeared and she grabbed his face and turned him towards her. 

“Are you still going to be my partner?” She looked into his eyes and couldn’t believe she never realized they were the same eyes she had looked at a thousand times before behind a black mask. She held her breath waiting. She couldn’t do this alone. Even with the support of her classmates behind her now, she wouldn’t be able to do this without him. 

He looked at her as if he had truly seen her for the first time and yet knew her for a thousand years. She watched as the cogs in his brain began to turn. His eyes stared back into her own and he seemed to come to a conclusion about something.

His mouth formed a small smile and he lifted his hand to hers, removing it from his face and kneeling to the ground, bringing his lips up to brush against her knuckles. It was such a familiar motion, so foreign to his appearance as it was now. But it was still him, he was still Chat. This time she wouldn’t playfully push him away though, not when he was looking at her with this biggest cheshire grin she had ever seen him wear, not when so much was on the line.

“Until the end, My Lady”


End file.
